Forget About Shark Week: It’s Shark Month with the August Kickstarter for Frenzy, An Illustrated Prose Novel

By Less Lee Moore

Artwork © Chandra Free, 2013

If you prefer your sharks to be more like Jaws than Sharknado, here’s something you can really sink your multiple rows of teeth into: Frenzy, where the sharks are the stars, and the humans are the threat!

Frenzy, an illustrated prose novel written by author Andrew E.C. Gaska, launched its Kickstarter project this month. (Although “illustrated prose novel” sounds like a graphic novel, it’s more along the lines of 1970s pulp magazines and comics.) Gaska has also written the novel Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes and the graphic novel Space: 1999 – Aftershock and Awe. He’s also the founder and creative director of BLAM! Ventures, a guerrilla transmedia studio. But wait, there’s more!

There are many outstanding artists contributing to Frenzy, including Dave Dorman (Aliens: Tribes, Star Wars: Dark Empire), Bob Eggleton (Godzilla, Magic: The Gathering), menton3 (Monocyte, LUST, TOME), Erik Gist (Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes, Magic: The Gathering), Steve White (Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Dinosaurs: A Celebration), Chandra Free (The God Machine, Fraggle Rock, Graphic Cannon Vol. 3, Mice Templar), and others.

Here are some samples of the work of the artists participating in Frenzy. Hover over the thumbnails for the the artist’s name and click for full size images.

Where there are artists, there are models. Frenzy‘s female characters will be based on popular cosplay models Kit Quinn and Joanie Mars, plus BLAM! Ventures’ Katie Delz and Ella Latham. Frenzy will be full of paintings of these lovely ladies, in their finest 1970s-style glory.

But what is Frenzy all about you ask? Here’s the synopsis from the Kickstarter page:

In the early 1970s, off the North Eastern seaboard of the United States, an army amasses. This army doesn’t use guns, or bombs, or even knives. Instead its weapons are speed, stealth, size, and rows of flesh-tearing teeth. They gather each year at the same location to eat and mate, then break up again to traverse the oceans until the next cycle.

This army poses no danger to those who stay out of its way. They make no organized attacks, lead no incursions into new territories . . . That is, unless they have leaders.

Now, they have three.

As a group or researchers, wealthy teenagers, and Vietnam veterans make their way up the coast, the army of great white sharks gathers to feed on seals. The sharks, however, soon find themselves besieged by ruthless predators. As the sharks attempt to flee, three of their kind; bigger, deadlier, and more cunning than the rest, rise to the occasion, whipping this pack of great whites into a feeding . . .

The Frenzy Kickstarter project was initiated to help fund costs for the production side of things, including design, illustration, editing, printing of the soft cover black and white edition, and shipping. Since Frenzy is independent project developed without a specific publisher, the cost of the artists and design can be expensive. As the Kickstarter page notes, “The advantage of developing the entire package without a publisher signed on is that we will retain full rights to the book, and the story can be as gruesome and interesting as we want!”

The Kickstarter campaign ends on Friday, August 30 with a goal of $30,000. There are oodles of prizes available if you donate, including digital and black and white print copies of the book, both original and custom artwork, the ability to be an illustrated character in the book, a shark dive with the author, and something called “Shark Bait Glamour Pix,” which you definitely need to read about on Kickstarter.

You find out more details about Frenzy, author Andrew E.C. Gaska, and all the artists and models involved on the novel’s Kickstarter page. Be sure to check out Frenzy on Facebook, too.